The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina

The international bestselling novel, sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected “wind” phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami—now in paperback When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the tsunami, she begins to mark the passage of time from that date onward: Everything is relative to March 11, 2011, the day the tsunami tore Japan apart, and when grief took hold of her life. Yui struggles to continue on, alone with her pain. Then, one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone booth in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. As news of the phone booth spreads, people travel to it from miles around. Soon Yui makes her own pilgrimage to the phone booth, too. But once there she cannot bring herself to speak into the receiver. Instead she finds Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of her mother’s death. Simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World is the signpost pointing to the healing that can come after.

So there's an actual phone booth (disconnected) in a garden in Otsuchi that has become a spot to help people who have lost loved ones heal. They come, they sit in the garden a bit, and “talk” to their deceased loved ones through this disconnected phone. Basically it lets them say the things they were never able to say when they were alive. There's a whole Wikipedia article here about it, and an Atlas Obscura article on it as well, with pictures. I thought this is a touching, fascinating idea, and was prepared for something to make me cry.

I dunno, this book just didn't click with me. It was fine? But I just never felt connected with any of the characters. Yui lost her mother and daughter before the story starts, and she meets Takeshi at the Wind Phone, there grieving for his lost wife. Takeshi has a daughter Hana, and the three of them grapple with what a relationship together means while also healing from their loss. It's a fine story, just not one I really wanted. For a phone that talks to dead relatives, I was expecting more drama, more tears, more touching heartbreak. I was actually a little bored with the story told, but it was fine enough.

An interesting premise without an interesting story, for me anyway. Someone coping with loss and rebuilding their life may get more out of it than I did, however.

This book is written in quite a simple way, and yet I found myself marking quotes a lot while reading it, so while simple in its telling, it manages to evoke quite a profound emotion and say a lot of very eloquent and consequential things that surprisingly touched me deeply.
The core of the book surrounds a phone booth in Japan, which actually does exist, although this book is fictional. It isn't a working phone but has become a sort of therapeutic and spiritual pilgrimage spot for those who have lost loved ones, most especially those who lost people during the March 2011 tsunami. It symbolically stands as a way to speak with those who have passed away. So, it's really not about a phone booth at all, but rather about the process of grief and how one small, unusual thing can become a crux for that process.
Our two main protagonists have both lost loved ones, Yui in particular lost her mother and daughter in the tsunami and we follow her mostly as she hears about and travels to the “Wind Phone” and the subsequent months and years that follow that pilgrimage with many more journey's both outward and inward as she meets others on their own personal journey of grief and how the phone and those people allow her the space and insight to find a way to deal with her own.
While the story's focus is on death, Messina handles it with grace and imbues it with hope and a light at the end of the tunnel. It doesn't give false platitudes or toxic positivity to convey its message though, but rather a very balanced outlook on embracing both the good and bad of life, the joy and sorrow, the triumphs, and the pitfalls, and how one does not necessarily have to overshadow the other, but rather how they are part of each other and how it can still lead to a good place.
The structure of the book may be difficult for some to get through. It doesn't grab you right away and the story isn't bursting with lyrical writing or fast-paced action, but is rather a slow exploration of the human experience of loss – both its heart-wrenching tragedy and its everyday mundaneness, those small everyday griefs very few speak about. I personally really enjoyed this approach and found it more profound for how it is told. I think it will stick with me for a long time.
I'll end with this quote, which while simple (fitting for the way this story is told), conveys a deep part of the story's premise:
“She had been wrong. It isn't just the best things that come to an end, but also the worst.”